


Postscript

by provocative_envy



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, Alternate Universe - Regency, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Fluff and Humor, Happy Ending, Light Angst, Marriage, Melodrama, POV Female Character, POV Third Person Limited, Romance, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-10
Updated: 2016-09-16
Packaged: 2018-08-14 07:19:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8003452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/provocative_envy/pseuds/provocative_envy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><br/>Harry Potter is a <em>bastard</em>.</p><p>Not literally, of course—god, the <em>scandal</em>—but he’s messy and he’s handsome and he’s sarcastic and he’s <em>rude,</em> really, unfailingly kind to the people who don’t matter and inexplicably hostile to the ones who <em>do</em>. He looks at Pansy like she’s an annoyance, at best, and a villain, at worst, and his distaste for her, for what she is and who she is and how she fits into the microscopically tiny mold of the world they’re forced to share—it makes her feel <em>transparent</em>. See-through, but not quite fortunate enough to be invisible.</p><p>It happens like this.</p><p>[ ALTERNATIVELY - Pansy is getting married for all the wrong reasons, and then she meets Harry. ]<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

> this is not historically accurate.
> 
> xoxo

* * *

 

On the first of April, Pansy Parkinson agrees to marry Ernie Macmillan.

His proposal is satisfactory, if not a bit stale—he calls at a quarter past ten, wielding a diamond-crusted heirloom tiara and a bouquet of exotic hothouse flowers, recites several off-tempo warbling odes to the blue of her eyes and the pink of her cheeks, and then, when the silence between them seems to stretch on, not quite awkward but not quite _comfortable,_ either; he rather abruptly drops to one knee.

For her part, Pansy gasps, presses her fingertips to her lips, and wishes, not for the first time, that summoning blushes were as easy as summoning tears.

“Oh, this is such a _shock_ ,” she lies, breathlessly.

Ernie offers her a pained, not entirely genuine looking smile before clearing his throat. “If you need a moment—”

“I don’t,” she simpers.

He doesn’t move from his spot on her drawing room floor. “Ah. Of course.”

“ _Truly_ ,” she goes on, hands fluttering, “I am _overwhelmed_ by your affections.”

His mouth opens, and then closes, and then opens again. “Indeed,” he says, voice slightly higher-pitched on the tail of the second syllable. “Which is why I would be _most_ understanding if you, ah, required time to reflect—”

“I absolutely don’t,” she gushes.

He stares at his still-bent knee. “Well. That’s—well.”

Pansy supposes he must be waiting for her to say yes—and she _will_ be saying yes; she isn’t an _imbecile_ —but she can’t quite bring herself to do so yet. To put an end to _this_ , the immeasurably satisfying culmination of _years_ of hard work. _Dedication_. Half a lifetime spent at finishing school, a wobbly tower of encyclopedias stacked on her head, learning how to sit and how to stand and how to bloody well breathe properly with a corset laced much, much too tight. Summers filled with dancing lessons and embroidery hoops and honest-to-god _weekly quizzes_ on the contents of the most recent edition of _Debrett’s_ , a revolving door of faux-French ladies’ maids tugging at her hair and lamenting the too-steep slope of her nose, piles of bloodstained seamstress needles and ghastly tasting teas to lighten her complexion and hours upon _hours_ of chess with her father, gambits and blockades and games she hadn’t had a _prayer_ of winning—

Pansy has _earned_ this.

And Ernie will be an attentive fiancé, when it matters. It isn’t as if she’s _sacrificing_ anything. Whatever deficiencies their relationship might have—deficiencies she wouldn’t even _notice_ if that romantic love-match _drivel_ wasn’t currently so fashionable—well, they can be overlooked. _Overcome_. Especially with the promise of a castle, and a title, and a _victory_ , because Pansy is going to be a _duchess_. Which is why—

On the first of April, Pansy Parkinson agrees to marry Ernie Macmillan.

Three weeks later, she meets Harry Potter.

 

* * *

 

Harry Potter is a _bastard_.

Not literally, of course—god, the _scandal_ —but he’s messy and he’s handsome and he’s sarcastic and he’s _rude,_ really, unfailingly kind to the people who don’t matter and inexplicably hostile to the ones who _do_. He looks at Pansy like she’s an annoyance, at best, and a villain, at worst, and his distaste for her, for what she is and who she is and how she fits into the microscopically tiny mold of the world they’re forced to share—it makes her feel _transparent_. See-through, but not quite fortunate enough to be invisible.

It happens like this:

On a rainy Friday afternoon, Pansy strolls into the lobby of Fortescue’s, passes her primrose-blue parasol back to her maid, and is immediately accosted by Daphne Greengrass. Daphne has a new last name now, of course, but Pansy loathes having to use it. Daphne had married a _Weasley,_ and not just _any_ Weasley, but the _youngest Weasley son_. Pansy would have to be _tortured_ like a Spanish heretic before she’d ever marry a second son. Or a _sixth_ son, as Daphne had done. What’s the _point_?

“Pansy!” Daphne squeals, waving Pansy over to a small corner table. Pansy’s pace remains unhurried; Daphne’s enthusiasm isn’t nearly as catching as it had once been. “Oh, this is _brilliant_ , we _just_ got back from the Burrow!”

Pansy has next to no idea what or where a _Burrow_ is, but she replies, “ _Lovely_ ,” anyway, carefully adjusting the Macmillan ruby pin in her hair. “I hope you had a smooth trip, considering the weather.”

Daphne beams lovingly at the tall, red-haired man slouched beside her. “Oh, Ron made it a _very_ smooth trip, indeed.”

The tops of Weasley’s ears turn pink. “ _Daph_ ,” he admonishes, not sounding the _least bit_ like he really means it. “You can’t _say_ things like that.”

The untidy man sitting across from them, who Pansy hadn’t even noticed, suddenly snorts. _Snorts_. As if Pansy, the daughter of an earl—no, the fiancée of a _duke—_ isn’t _right there_.

“ _Harry_ ,” Daphne chides him, and _she_ doesn’t sound like she really means it, either. God. What has Weasley been _doing_ to her? “This is my very dearest friend, Pansy Parkinson. Pansy, this is Harry Potter—he’s _Ron’s_ very dearest friend, too, isn’t that _wonderful?_ ”

The charlatan—a Potter _,_ apparently—is young, Pansy realizes upon closer inspection. Probably Weasley’s age. Fresh out of Cambridge. _Unlike_ Weasley, however, Potter is…attractive. Darkly so. His skin is tanned a deep bronze-brown, like he’s spent an unfashionable amount of time outdoors, and his eyes are a rather astonishing shade of vivid emerald green. His jaw is square, and his nose is straight, and his mouth is crooked. The sum total of his features is wholly, entirely _smug,_ giving Pansy the distinct impression that she’s being condescended to in some way.

“Pleasure to meet you, sir,” she says, flashing him an admittedly flimsy, tight-lipped smile—which he doesn’t even have the decency to _return_.

“Pansy Parkinson,” he repeats, tone slightly sour. “You’re engaged to Macmillan, aren’t you? Ernie?”

“Yes, I am,” she replies, lifting her chin. “He proposed earlier this month.”

Potter hums. “We were at school together, you know. Still see him around a lot. Good man.”

“Yes,” Pansy says again, more firmly. “He is. I’m _thrilled_ to be marrying him.”

Potter’s answering frown is skeptical. _Exaggerated_. “Strange, then, isn’t it?”

She sniffs. “What is?”

“That he’s never mentioned you. Not once.”

Stung—and unwilling to allow Potter the privilege of _knowing_ that she is—Pansy levels him with a politely mocking sneer. “And yet you’re aware of our engagement!” she exclaims, as sweetly as she can manage. Her cheeks are warm. Her bones are brittle. She wants to go _home_. “What a _devoted_ friend you are, sir.”

Potter clenches his jaw for a glorious, too-brief moment—and then he’s barking out a gravelly, irritatingly _masculine_ laugh, sharp-edged and scornful, shaking his head and diverting his attention back to Weasley—

It’s a clear dismissal.

And Pansy is left standing there, posture perfect and expression placid and rage practically seething, smoldering, _simmering_ in her gut like watery soup in a cast-iron cauldron, before she grits her teeth, scowls at Potter—god, his _hair_ is a disaster, too, who let him leave the _house_ —and instinctively reaches for the enormous sixteenth-century, princess-cut sapphire Ernie had given her the previous day. She twists the ring around and around her finger, reminds herself that she can’t very well plan a wedding while being tried for _murder_ , and then coughs, delicately.

“ _Oh_ , is that from Ernie?” Daphne asks, gesturing to the ring.

Pansy relaxes. This is normal. This is what she’d _come_ to Fortescue’s for in the first place. “Mm,” she confirms, holding out her hand so that the sapphire can adequately catch the light. “Queen Elizabeth gifted it to his great-great grandfather.”

Daphne absently strokes the ugly silver locket around her own neck. “Aren’t family heirlooms so _lovely_ for engagements?”

Weasley glances up at that, an appallingly bashful grin spreading across the lower half of his face, and Daphne giggles, a wistful sigh escaping her lips when Weasley just— _watches_ her, looking pleased and surprised and vaguely like he thinks he might actually be dreaming.

Pansy furrows her brow.

She feels strangely off-balance, and wonders if this is what vertigo is—the earth simply _tilting_ on its axis without any warning at all, rearranging latitudes and longitudes and Pansy’s ingrained ability to ignore the things that she doesn’t understand. The things that she doesn’t want or _need_ to understand. Because the dull, grating, somewhat hollow _pang_ reverberating through her chest; it isn’t jealousy, and it isn’t important. It isn’t—

She blinks herself back to reality.

Squares her shoulders, just like her father taught her to.

Chews on the inside of her mouth, abruptly uncomfortable with the happy, harmonious _glow_ that’s suffusing Daphne’s cheeks.

And it’s then that Pansy registers a gaze, heavy with judgment and mostly unfamiliar, boring into the side of her head. _Studying_ her, like she’s a wriggling wreck of a specimen trapped beneath the bottle-thick lens of a microscope. Like she’s been found _lacking_. Wanting. Useless.

She doesn’t turn to look.

She can guess quite well who that gaze belongs to.

 

* * *

 


	2. II

* * *

 

To Pansy’s eternal consternation, that isn’t the last she sees of Harry Potter.

Daphne’s return to London results in a veritable flood of invitations—there are afternoon tea parties and Japanese garden lunches and shopping trips, museum exhibitions, carriage rides through the park and early morning jaunts to feed the ducks and always, always, _always_ , Daphne arrives with Weasley and Potter in tow.

It’s tedious.

It’s _frustrating_.

Potter seems to take an incongruous measure of delight in irritating Pansy. He interrupts her when she speaks, delivers smoothly cutting _non-sequiturs_ that she can’t _possibly_ respond to, not if she wants to keep her reputation intact, and he chuckles, not a little meanly, whenever she’s congratulated on her engagement to Ernie. She hates it. She hates _him_.

She showers him in slyly backhanded compliments— _“That cravat is_ much _less singed than usual”_ —and he asks her deliberately invasive questions about Ernie’s proposal— _“Did he_ really _recite poetry, or was it just a glorified contract negotiation?”_ ; she discovers he has a weakness—if a permanently tender, still-gaping _wound_ can even be described as such—after drolly remarking, _“Your parents were rather_ lucky _that they never had to meet you,”_ and he flinches and he glares and he _pushes,_ pokes, needles and needles until he hisses, _“Don’t you have_ anyone else _to follow around? I can’t imagine how Daphne’s put up with you for so long,”_ and Pansy—Pansy crumples, almost, doubt blossoming like a bruise against the inside of her ribs.

And _yet_.

The sniping and the bickering and the viciously volatile tension that strings all their discord together—it’s interspersed with odd, electrically charged _moments_ that on their own don’t make any sort of sense, no, but when placed side by side, one on top of the other, seem to paint a picture that Pansy doesn’t particularly like to consider the ramifications of.

Because there’s the callused heat of Potter’s hand around hers as they collide during a dance at Almack’s—and it _is_ a collision, nothing graceful or easy or _pretty_ about it, no—and there’s his coolly mocking sneer of amusement, callous and smug, when she can no longer put off bringing Ernie around—and, god, hadn’t _that_ been a nightmare, a slow-motion montage of stupid jokes and friendly pats on the back, _Pansy_ relegated to the role of outsider, awkwardly superfluous—and there’s the unerring, inescapable _fact_ that they keep being thrown together despite her best and most manipulative efforts to _avoid him_ , to ignore him, to pretend that he isn’t there and he isn’t real and he isn’t—

Potter watches her, sometimes, from across crowded ballrooms and significantly less crowded patisserie tables.

She only knows because she watches him, too.

 

* * *

 

Pansy is red-faced and sweaty by the time she arrives at the Vanes’ for their annual summer dinner party.

It’s an unpleasantly warm, unseasonably humid evening. Her dress is an elegant column of pale mauve silk, airy and light, and her hair is pinned back in a sleek chignon at the nape of her neck. Her brow is dewy with perspiration, and the scalloped lace border of her chemise is scratchy where it touches her skin. She’s tired. She hopes it isn’t obvious.

“Smells like rain,” someone comments as the rack of lamb is served.

Potter is seated across from Pansy, strategically placed next to Daphne’s younger sister—who he’s _grimacing_ at, the cad, much the same way he always grimaces at Pansy. Although. _Although._ Pansy can’t help but notice that he seems to be being a bit _kinder_ about it with Astoria. More subtle. Less like he’s counting down the seconds until he can be blessedly, blissfully _free_ of her presence.

The thought settles badly.

Pansy stabs a slice of lamb with the tines of her fork—it’s rare, _too_ rare, it’s practically still _bleeding_ —and takes a long, perfectly unfeminine gulp of sherry. She’s allowed sherry now. She’s going to be married. She’s going to be a _duchess_.

“Macmillan isn’t accompanying you tonight?” Potter asks, head cocked in what can really only be a _challenge_ , but—

She takes another determined sip of sherry. “No,” she replies, bluntly. “He’s busy. Couldn’t make it.”

“Well, I’m sure he’s _gutted_ ,” Potter says, smirking down at his plate. “You two don’t get to spend all that much time together, do you?”

Pansy clutches the stem of her glass tightly enough for her fingertips to turn white. “Yes. Well. It’s like I _just_ said—he’s very busy.”

“Of course,” Potter demurs.

She swallows yet another mouthful of sherry. “He plays an _incredibly_ important role in Parliament,” she continues.

“Indeed.”

“Really, they’d be _lost_ without him.”

“Naturally.”

“And I support Ernie in _all_ of his endeavors,” she goes on, dimly wondering why she can’t seem to stop _talking_. She shrugs. Sherry sloshes uneasily in the pit of her stomach. “ _All_ of them.”

“I can tell,” Potter assures her with not even a _shred_ of sincerity.

“Thus, marrying him is essentially an act of _patriotism_ —”

At that, Potter starts to cough rather uncontrollably, thumping his fist against his sternum and wildly reaching out for his wineglass. He has his chin ducked, splotches of bright, sizzling pink staining his cheeks, but Pansy can see the grin, wide and helpless, splitting his mouth wide open, exposing a neat row of blindingly white teeth and transforming his face from merely _handsome_ —appealing on a basic, almost _boring_ level—to something else. Something fascinating.

She’d made Harry Potter laugh.

She’d made Harry Potter _laugh_.

He glances up.

Their eyes meet.

And she sits still, trying and trying and _trying_ , to no avail, to catch her breath, to remember that she _hates_ him, hates how he makes her feel, hates the chaos and the confusion and the _futility_ of that single, solitary emotion—and he’s nodding at her, the edges of his smile twitching up and then down, _sheepishly_ , like he’s conceding defeat, just this once, and—

She drains her glass.

 

* * *

 

After dinner, the ladies retire to a tastefully decorated drawing room while the men wander off to drink whiskey and smoke cigars and discuss horses in the library.

Pansy isn’t _drunk_.

Not really.

She’s willing to admit that she’s perhaps a bit _misty-headed_ , shoulders relaxed and cheeks flushed and movements marginally _wobbly_ as she collapses on a burgundy jacquard settee—but she isn’t _drunk_. She’s too refined for that. She’s going to be a _duchess_.

“Pansy?” Astoria asks, peering at her with thinly veiled concern. “Are you quite alright? You look…”

“I’m _excellent,_ darling, thank you,” Pansy says, clearing her throat around a hiccup. “Is there—where is—god, why do we _do this?_ ”

Astoria blinks. “Do what?”

Pansy flaps her hand. “ _Separate_.”

“From the men, you mean?” Romilda Vane puts in—daft, daft, _daft_ Romilda Vane, with her dark eyes and her luscious hair and her seemingly _impenetrable_ air of _mystery._ Pansy hadn’t even been _talking_ to Romilda Vane. Why _would_ she be? Romilda Vane was never going to be a _duchess_. Not like Pansy.

“Yes, _from the men_ ,” Pansy drawls, wrinkling her nose. “Who else have we _separated_ from tonight, Romilda? The footmen?”

Astoria’s eyebrows fly up towards her hairline. “I’m sure no one here needed to be separated from the _footmen_ , Pansy,” she insists with a nervous sounding giggle.

Romilda hums. “Unless there’s something you’d like to tell us, Pansy?”

Pansy snorts, much to Astoria’s visible horror. “Not unless _you’re_ finally going to confess to those _hugely_ embarrassing love letters you used to write to Lucius Malfoy.”

Romilda gasps. “How do _you_ know about—”

“Oh, _no_!” Astoria exclaims, swiftly rising from her spot on the settee. “There’s a _tear_ in the hem of my skirt! Excuse me, ladies, I _really_ must attend to this.”

Pansy rolls her eyes. “Fancy that.”

Astoria scurries towards the door, shooting Pansy a worried glance. “I, ah, might…require some assistance? With the tear?”

“That’s what the _maids_ are for, darling!” Romilda trills. “Now, _do_ be quick about it, we’ve planned a _pantomime_ for later!”

Astoria smiles weakly as she exits the room, and Romilda waits a precisely perfunctory thirty seconds before speaking _again_.

“Can you _believe_ how positively _tragic_ it is that Daphne Greengrass—oh, I suppose that isn’t her name now, is it—actually _went through_ with marrying _Ronald Weasley_?”

Pansy stiffens. “Why, exactly, is that _tragic,_ Romilda?”

Romilda lowers her voice. “It’s just—he isn’t _just_ poor, is he? He’s the _youngest_ son. He’ll never inherit _anything_. Not unless there’s some kind of _epidemic_.”

Pansy presses her lips together. “Yes, well, Daphne is _quite_ pleased with the arrangement, so—”

“And those _freckles_ , god, hopefully they don’t have _children—”_

Pansy’s thoughts on Daphne’s marriage are have always been identical to Romilda’s. Hearing them spoken aloud, though—hearing them emerge from _vile, vile, vile_ Romilda Vane’s mouth—it strikes an unpleasant chord in Pansy’s conscience. Pansy _knows_ Daphne; knows all the best parts of her and all the worst. Pansy is _allowed_ to think that Daphne could’ve done far, far better than _Ronald Weasley._ Pansy is _allowed_ to criticize Daphne’s choice in husband. Romilda Vane isn’t. Romilda Vane is an _interloper_. Romilda Vane doesn’t know _anything_.

“Romilda,” Pansy suddenly coos, overloud and impressively sharp. “Tell me, is it _true_ that your father’s gambled away your dowry _again_?”

Romilda freezes. “Gossip is an ugly distraction,” she grits out. “Surely _you_ know better than to engage in such frivolity.”

“Oh, don’t _worry_ ,” Pansy hastens to add, deceptively sweet, “I’m _sure_ it’s not the _only_ reason you haven’t had any offers yet.”

Romilda glowers at her, outrage close to palpable, and then sputters, “You—I haven’t _—_ ”

“Anyway,” Pansy cuts her off, swaying _regally_ as she gets to her feet. “It’s neither here nor there. There’s someone for _everyone_ , darling. Chin up.”

The drawing room door swings shut behind her, and the snick of the lock as it echoes through the quiet semidarkness of the hallway—it’s _beautiful_. It’s poetry and it’s music and it’s a soaring sense of _accomplishment_ , of righting a tremendous wrong and reclaiming control over her own happiness. It’s the most _herself_ Pansy has felt in _weeks_.

Of course, Harry Potter has to ruin it.

Of _course_.

Because he’s standing just outside the door— _lurking_ , really—and she runs into him. Barrels into him. Trips into him.

Reflexively, he grabs her elbows to steady her.

She doesn’t move.

He doesn’t _let_ her.

Instead, he stares at her like she’s a stranger again, like she’s unexpected and unsettling and god, _god_ , how _dare_ he, how dare he look at her like that when she can feel the roughness his palms and the swirling warmth of his breath against her lips and his eyes, his _eyes_ , his eyes are greener than the bloody wallpaper, it isn’t _fair_ —

He’d heard what she’d said, obviously.

“Care to take a turn around the gardens?” he asks, somewhat stiltedly.

 

* * *

 


	3. III

* * *

 

They wind up in the hedge maze.

The silence between them is heavier than it normally is, a dead weight that feels crushing enough to cripple the atmosphere, drag down the impeccably manicured walls of the maze, bury them both beneath the barely-there glow of a dangling crescent moon. Pansy is dreading the coming conversation, the inevitability of having to explain herself to _Harry Potter_ —because he’d _heard her_ , heard what had to have sounded like an impassioned defense of, dear god, of _Ronald Weasley_ — and Potter was going to have _questions_ about that. In fact—

“Why did you do that?” Potter blurts out, jaw clenched at what appears to a quite unnecessarily aggressive angle.

“Do what?” Pansy drawls, mulishly determined to make this whole encounter as uncomfortable for him as she possibly can. She doesn’t owe him a thing; least of all, an _answer_.

“You hate Ron,” Potter states, flatly.

“Mm,” Pansy agrees. “Vehemently.”

“Then why did you _defend_ him?”

“I didn’t _defend_ him,” she huffs. The towering bulk of the hedge maze now feels vaguely oppressive, like it’s closing in on them from all sides. Coming here had been a poor choice. “Don’t be _absurd_.”

Potter’s eyes narrow. “What’s your game?” he demands.

“Are you even _listening_ to yourself?”

“No, but I _did_ listen to _you_ back in that drawing room, and—”

“Why are you so _paranoid_ about this?”

“Not about _this_ ,” Potter retorts. “About _you_.”

Pansy sighs, inspecting her fingernails with feigned nonchalance. “There’s no _conspiracy_. Perhaps I simply _despise_ Romilda Vane. Perhaps it isn’t about _Weasley_ at all.”

“Look, if you’re trying to—”

“Trying to _what?_ ” she exclaims. “Tear apart Daphne’s _repulsive_ love match? _Spare me_.”

“Then what—”

“He’s Daphne’s,” Pansy interjects, rather harshly. She rubs the fabric of her skirt between her thumb and forefinger, abruptly relieved that it’s a bit too dark to catch the dull, multifaceted gleam of her newest Macmillan ring. She doesn’t want to lie to Harry Potter. She hates that she doesn’t want to lie. “Weasley is Daphne’s.”

“What does that have to do with—”

“Weasley is— _important_ to Daphne,” Pansy says, talking right over Potter’s frankly _willful_ lack of comprehension. “I will likely _never_ understand _why_ , but that doesn’t—negate that. An insult to _him_ is an insult to _her._ To me.”

“So, it’s about _you_ , not—”

“Don’t be an _idiot,_ Potter,” Pansy scoffs, impatient and almost—well, almost _disappointed,_ if she’s being honest with herself. She pauses. Sniffs. Scowls up at the sky, at the mess of stars and clouds and velvety midnight blue. She _detests_ being honest with herself. “I wasn’t defending Weasley. That’s what you wanted to know, isn’t it?”

Potter grunts, crossing his arms over his chest and drumming his fingers against the bend of his elbow; he has his shirtsleeves rolled up, revealing a smattering of wiry dark hair and corded lines of muscle. Pansy’s throat goes dry. A thrumming sort of tension twists at her insides.

“You were defending _Daphne_ ,” he says, slow and syrupy.

“Yes.”

Potter licks his lips, and the unfamiliar knot in Pansy’s lower abdomen—it _tightens_. “Because…” he trails off, mouth slanted with a smirk that’s summarily, _uncharacteristically_ cruel. “Because she’s your _only_ friend. Do I have that right, Parkinson?”

Pansy swallows, and then swallows again, dimly recognizing that the curdling coil of nausea suddenly churning in her gut must be humiliation. _Humiliation_. She’s humiliated. It’s a curious sensation, and she wonders if this is what Romilda Vane had felt—god, less than half an hour ago. Pansy had been so _proud_ of that. Proud of how _neatly_ she’d handled her. Handled the situation. Cold, clinical detachment—that’s what’s required to get ahead. To _stay_ ahead. Pansy possesses it in spades.

Unless _Potter_ is around, apparently.

“God, you are such an _ass,_ ” she eventually snaps, skewering him with a furiously unimpressed glare.

His eyes widen. “An—an _ass_ ,” he repeats, disbelievingly. “I’m an _ass_.”

“ _Yes!_ ” she bleats, shoving at his chest with the heel of her palm. It’s _grossly_ inappropriate for her to be touching him like this. For her to be _shouting_ at him like this. She’s never cared less. “You are an _ass_. Do you _really_ think I’m not _aware_ —painfully, _excruciatingly_ aware—of how unpopular I am? Of how intolerable everyone finds me?”

Potter’s expression flickers with something, a loosely guarded sort of _regret_ , she suspects, but it doesn’t matter. He can’t take back what he’s said. She can’t take back who she _is_.

“Do you think I don’t _know_ that Macmillan—that _Ernie_ —only wants me because he’s a bloody, a bloody _do-gooder_ who can’t abide not being the _best-gooder_ and he needs my father’s Lords vote to achieve that? _Really_ , Potter?”

Distantly, Pansy is conscious of the fact that she should _shut up_ , should stem the torrential flood of words she’d never meant to let out in the first place, but it’s difficult to locate the source. Somewhere, there’s a wound to cauterize. A cut to stitch. A scrape to bandage. It’s unfortunate that blood has always made her a bit queasy.

“So— _yes_ , alright, yes, Daphne is my _only friend_ , and there isn’t—she _knows_ me, and she _likes_ me, and it’s not—” Pansy breaks off, squeezing her eyes shut. She’s been able to cry on demand since the age of _twelve_. This isn’t that. It _isn’t_. “An insult to Weasley is an insult to Daphne,” Pansy says again, on an audibly shaky exhale. “And an insult to Daphne is an insult to _me_.”

Potter doesn’t immediately respond, but his scrutiny is razor-sharp and thorough, even as his lips part and his tongue darts out and his features _soften,_ completely at odds with the almost ferocious intensity of his gaze—but there’s that same familiar undercurrent of _anger_ , too, the one that she thinks used to be there because he hadn’t understood her, no, not at all; the one that she thinks is there _now_ because he _does_.

“Pansy,” he starts, and no, no, _no_ , surely he’s never said her name before, not like that, not like _this_ —

She isn’t afraid to admit to what she does next.

She leaves.

She _flees_.

 

* * *

 

Several weeks pass without incident.

Pansy continues to see much, much more of Potter than she’d like to.

Something changes, of course, after that night in the hedge maze. It has to. When Potter speaks to her now, his voice is carefully modulated, accent crisp and tone congenial, and their arguments—still petty, still biting—take on a cadence that feels…not affectionate, no, and not fond, certainly, but not quite _antagonistic_ , either. Pansy smirks at the state of his shirtsleeves, badly ironed and unevenly cuffed, and his answering smile is rueful rather than scornful. It’s—friendly, almost. Tentative.

Weasley doesn’t treat her any differently—any more _pleasantly_ —and she assumes that Potter hasn’t told him that she’s been running around town as the latest and most unlikely of Weasley champions. Vindictively, she thinks that Potter must not want Weasley to like her. Wistfully, she thinks that Potter must be respecting her right to privacy. To secrecy.

Pansy doesn’t have any good secrets.

Except—

Except she _does_ , she supposes, because surely it’s a _secret_ , the way Potter looks at her. Surely it’s for her, for _her_ , for her and no one else, how his gaze positively _sears_ into her skin, hotter than the sun, hotter than is technically tolerable, _surely_ , and surely she isn’t meant to share his curiosity, his _interest_ , with anyone other than herself, surely the lingering touches and the expectant silences and the steadily, _steadily_ increasing pressure of his thigh against hers during midmorning carriage rides—

Surely.

 _Surely_ .

Surely what happens next, at Almack’s, is _more_ than just a secret.

 

* * *

 

Pansy is tucked into the corner of the ballroom with Potter, nursing a mostly full cup of watery lemonade, head tilted back and lips turned up in a wince as the boning of her corset digs mercilessly into the curve of her ribs.

It’s after ten, and the crowd is _suffocating_.

“May I have this dance?” Potter suddenly asks, the formality emerging awkward and slightly wooden; unpracticed, like he hasn’t had cause to use it very often.

“I can’t _waltz_ with you, Potter,” she replies, staring at his outstretched hand, ostensibly nonplussed—even as her heartbeat stalls, skips, starts up _faster_ , practically in time with the string quartet. _One_ -two-three. _One-_ two-three. It can’t be healthy. She must be ill.

“Why not? You have permission,” Potter says, just as blandly.

“To dance with my _fiancé_.”

“Curious,” Potter murmurs, not lowering his hand. “I don’t see him here right now. Do you?”

She shakes her head.

Potter _still_ doesn’t lower his hand.

“A walk, then,” he presses. “To the balcony.”

She doesn’t immediately respond—but then she’s nodding, accepting his proffered arm with a hesitance that feels significant, in some way, and letting him guide her around the perimeter of the room. They pass gilded Grecian columns and elaborately decorated pilasters, classical medallions studding the walls in between enormous oval mirrors. The sensation of being presented with the edge of a cliff, of swaying on a dusty bed of crumbling rocks and peering down at clouds and smoke and _uncertainty_ ; it’s overwhelming. She’s never been one for jumping.

When they finally step outside, she can’t remember why she’s there—with him, like this, surrounded by all the ingredients to a scandal and simply…holding her breath.

“I didn’t like you when we first met,” Potter says, haltingly, apropos of absolutely nothing.

Pansy quirks a brow. “The feeling was quite mutual, I assure you.”

“You weren’t different,” he goes on, as if she hadn’t spoken. “Until…”

“Until?”

His answering grin is lopsided. Endearing. Magical. “Until you were.”

She chokes out a laugh. “I didn’t like _you_ when we first met,” she tells him. “I still don’t, really.”

“Really,” he echoes, pointedly skeptical.

“ _Really_ ,” she whispers, trying not to smile. “You weren’t important _at all_.”

“And then?”

She pauses. Registers the air tremble, before going very, very still. “And then you were,” she confesses.

The kiss, when it comes, isn’t a surprise.

It’s slower than she’d thought it might be— _not_ that she’d _thought_ about this, about kissing Harry Potter, she’d _never_ —unhurried and relaxed and deliberately, disarmingly _gentle_. It isn’t desperate. The world doesn’t end. Because there’s _nothing_ , really, nothing but his lips brushing hers, up and down and _up_ , the motion hazy with a tantalizing sort of reverence, like he can’t quite believe that she’s real. She can’t quite believe that _he’s_ real.

It’s her first kiss.

She _melts_ into it.

And it’s warm, so, so _warm_ , the feeling that spreads out from her fingertips, following the course of her veins and burrowing deeper, seeping _lower_ , a treacle-sticky lurch of _want_ enveloping her abdomen and seizing her lungs and _oh_ , she wants this, wants _him_ , wants this moment and the next moment and a hundred, a _thousand_ more, wants his smiles, crooked and half-cocked, wants his hands at her waist and his mouth against hers and that electric punch of _adrenaline_ , excitement, his side and her side and the tremendous thrill of having to clash, having to compromise—

She wants to be understood.

She wants to be _treasured_.

Potter breaks the kiss.

His eyes are—dark. Fathomless. She wonders if she could drown in them—dive in and sink straight to the bottom—but then reminds herself that she knows how to swim.

“Pansy,” he says, voice cracking, and it’s guttural and it’s wavering and it’s imperfect and it’s—

Reality.

 _Reality_ .

She stares up at him, unable to reconcile the version of her that had mussed Potter’s hair and clutched Potter’s shoulders and wished for _more_ , god—and the girl she’s always seen in the mirror. Because that girl, the one in the mirror, she’s engaged to someone else. She’s so close to—to _something._ Something she’s craved for ages. She’s going to be married. She’s going to be a _duchess_.

And before Potter can speak again.

Before he can _ruin_ everything— _ruin her_ —

Pansy’s stumbling backwards and she’s tripping down the balcony steps and she’s outside, she’s heading for the gardens, she’s running.

It starts to rain, of course.

 

* * *

 


	4. IV

* * *

 

He chases her.

Harry Potter is nothing if not determined—the sort who isn’t about to postpone getting what he wants, not now that he’s figured out what it is.

Pansy isn’t like that; isn’t like _him_. She bides her time. Plans, and schemes, and _tricks._

Harry grabs. Harry risks. Harry _takes_.

“Pansy!” he shouts, and it’s a bit of a miracle that she hears him at all over the roar of the rain. “Pansy, _stop!_ ”

She doesn’t stop.

She reaches a corner—the garden path loops back around to the balcony at some point; perhaps she can be back inside and covered in a blanket and ushered out to her father’s carriage before Harry can catch her—and the flimsy sole of her slipper skids on a wet cobblestone. She gasps, flails her arms, and feels a pair of strong, capable hands grasp her elbows, effectively preventing her from tumbling into a nearby flowerbed.

She spins around.

Wrenches herself backwards.

Is unaccountably— _infuriatingly_ —relieved that Harry doesn’t move towards her again.

“Why are you _running_ from me?” he asks, sounding exasperated.

Pansy’s entire _face_ twitches with indignation. “To escape the _torment_ of your _presence_ ,” she returns coolly, flicking water out of her eyes. “ _Evidently_.”

“Really? Because _I_ think that you just wanted to be _dramatic_.”

“ _You’re_ the one chasing me into a _rainstorm_.”

“As if you didn’t _know_ I would catch you!”

“I didn’t!”

“Oh?” Harry drawls, somewhat acerbically.

“I _didn’t_ ,” she insists, stomping her foot into a puddle. An icy deluge of water soaks her all the way up to her ankle. She barrels on. “How was I to _know_ you’re—you’re some kind of _athlete?_ ”

“Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but it didn’t require any outstanding feats of _athleticism_ to catch _you_ , the eighteen year old girl in a _dress—_ ”

“ _Regardless_ ,” Pansy half-shrieks, “this _eighteen year old girl in a dress_ doesn’t want to _speak to you_ right now, so if you’d—”

He cuts her off with a disbelieving scoff. “Yeah, alright,” he mutters, raking a frustrated hand through the sopping wet mess of his hair and then pursing his lips, abruptly demanding, “Why are you _marrying_ him?”

She opens her mouth to reply—and nothing comes out.

Rain continues to fall, splashing the cobblestones, obscuring her vision, but his eyes are still so green. So very, very green, and that shouldn’t be possible, she thinks, a distant sort of dread beginning to settle in the marrow of her bones. She shouldn’t be able to see him so clearly. He shouldn’t be so _vivid,_ so fully-formed and intensely present, not when the rest of the world is such a blur. It shouldn’t be _possible_. And she wonders, can’t help but wonder, if it’s the same for him; if he looks at her and sees _everything_.

“ _That’s_ how you want to start this conversation?” she bleats, shoulders slumping.

“Why—are—you— _marrying—_ him?” Harry repeats, carefully enunciating each word.

“I’m—we’re—he’s—”Pansy stumbles over her usual responses. _I’m happy. We’re in love._ _He’s everything I’ve ever wanted._ They feel inadequate, all of them, and she marvels at the fact that she’d never noticed before. “Don’t do this.”

“ _Why?_ ” Harry presses, more harshly. “ _Why_ are you marrying him?”

“I don’t know,” she lies. “I—I’m supposed to, aren’t I? Marry him? He’s a _duke_.”

Harry tilts his back and yanks at the knot of his cravat. It’s already rumpled, of course. He really should get rid of his valet. “That’s it, then? The title?”

She fidgets uncomfortably. “Why do you _care_ , Potter?” she asks, a bit meanly. “Do _you_ want to marry me?”

He shrugs. “Maybe.”

Pansy gapes at him, visibly taken aback, but then—slowly, _slowly_ , so slowly—anger begins to eclipse surprise. And she thinks. She thinks about how _dreadful_ Harry had been to her that night at the Vanes’, about how his face had been concealed by skyscraping hedge maze shadows and hers had been illuminated by the shining sterling silver of the moon—and she swallows a laugh she can’t be sure wouldn’t emerge biting and bitter.

“Well, _I_ don’t want to marry _you_ ,” she snaps, lifting her chin. It’s a mistake.

Harry’s expression softens. Maybe. It’s difficult to tell, really, when her gaze is darting every which way but _his_. “Pansy.”

She sniffs. “Yes?”

“You can’t marry him.”

“My engagement—”

“Can be broken.”

Her lips tremble. She tells herself it’s from the cold, but it isn’t. It _isn’t_. “The scandal—”

“Will be worth it.”

She stares at him, helpless and numb. She has never been uncertain about the shape of her future before. Not like this. “I’m—I’m supposed—I was going to be a _duchess_.”

A grin suddenly twitches at the corners of his mouth. “ _Was_ going to be a duchess.” It isn’t a question.

“I—of course I didn’t mean—how can you—why are you so _calm_ about this?” she bursts out.

“Because.”

“ _Because_ ,” she repeats, shaking her head, flinching at the sensation of rainwater being flung from the ends of her hair, dripping down the nape of her neck.

“Because you aren’t going to marry him,” Harry informs her, and he sounds confident and he sounds satisfied and he sounds _smug_ and—

_Oh_ , Pansy remembers now.

Remembers why she’s always wanted to prove him wrong, no matter the subject, no matter the _consequence_. Remembers why the thrill of _fighting_ with him, indulging in a swift, albeit scathing exchange of insults while desperately, _desperately_ ignoring the pounding penetrating _ache_ behind her breastbone—she remembers why she’s been chasing _that_ and not a wedding date. She remembers.

“And you’re certain of that, are you?” she finally asks. “That I’m not...that I’m going to call it off.”

“I am,” he declares, and then he’s taking a step forward, heavy and _deliberate_ , not giving her a chance to deny what he’s doing, what he’s _saying_ , even without the benefit of words—

And she could move, she knows. She could hike her skirts up and turn around and run all the way back to her father’s house and her fiancé’s castle and a long, fruitful, interminably _boring_ life as a Macmillan. As a duchess.

She doesn’t move.

She doesn’t run.

She can’t, she can’t, she _can’t_.

“And what if you’re wrong?” she manages to whisper.

He reaches out, palm hovering above her cheek, and the heat of it—of _him_ —it’s scalding. Searing. “Well, I imagine I’ll have _you_ there to point it out,” he says, wryly, and Pansy—

Pansy _laughs_.

And then, obviously, she kisses him.

 

* * *

 

On the twenty-ninth of June, Romilda Vane agrees to marry Ernie Macmillan.

It’s a satisfactory proposal, if not a bit stale, and most of London commends her for stepping in after that _ghastly_ Parkinson girl had broken the poor man’s heart. Romilda isn’t particularly bothered about _that_ —for god’s sake, Macmillan had _yawned_ during her acceptance speech—but she _is_ rather quick to send a note to the Potters’ afterwards.

Because _Romilda_ is going to be a _duchess_ , and Pansy is going be a _bridesmaid_.

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading, as well as for the kudos/comments! this was a lot of fun, and if i have some free time in the next few months i might write a piece for romilda--who, in case it's not clear, is probably not going to get to be a duchess.
> 
> poor ernie, et cetera.
> 
> xoxo

**Author's Note:**

> friendly reminder to [come join me in hell](http://www.provocative-envy.tumblr.com).


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